To date, easy-open packing pouches of various types have been developed for use as hermetic pouches to package products in a wide variety of fields, such as food and beverages, industrial products, medical products, and the like, because such pouches can simply be thermally fused, obviating the need for sealing with adhesives and the like.
In the medical field, easy-open packing pouches have been employed for packaging of flat elongated products such as electrodes for measuring blood glucose level and the like. In consideration of consumers purchasing a product that has been packed into this type of sealed pouch, there have been proposed structures whereby the sealed pouch can be opened safely and easily without the use of an implement such as a scissors, kitchen knife, or blade (for example, Precision Xtra G3b electrode (made by Abbott Laboratories), Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 11-278501).
For example, as shown in FIG. 23, Precision Xtra G3b electrode (made by Abbott Laboratories) discloses a plan view of a packaging film 100 for a sensor 104 for measuring blood glucose level, made by Abbott Laboratories.
This packaging bag, which has a heat-bonded peripheral edge section 101 formed along its four sides in order to package a flat elongated product such as an electrode for measuring blood glucose level, is configured such that the packaging pouch can be torn open from a notch 102 pre-provided in a lengthwise direction of the pouch, and the content is taken out. When a packaging pouch of the afore described configuration is opened to take out the content for use, the pouch begins to tear from the notch 102, which functions as an origination point of the tear line. An aperture is then created in the packaging pouch, through tearing of the heat-bonded peripheral edge section 101, followed by tearing of the packaging section 103. Packaging pouches in which a notch or the like is disposed at an edge of the pouch to enable opening by hand are utilized as a packaging format for many products.
As shown in FIG. 24, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 11-278501 discloses a plan view of an easy-open packaging pouch 111 formed by a packaging film 105 for sensor for measuring blood glucose level.
In this easy-open packaging pouch 111, two pieces of packaging film 106 of tetragonal shape each including a base material layer and a thermoplastic resin layer are superimposed, and, leaving a non-heat-bonded section 107 in a prescribed area at one side, a heat-bonded peripheral edge section 108 is formed in three-sided square pattern along the other three sides. Additionally, there is formed a protruding heat-bonded section 109 that connects both ends of the heat-bonded peripheral edge section 108 and that protrudes outward. At least the protruding heat-bonded section 109 is sealed in separable fashion, and a cutout section 110 is formed at a location adjacent to an end of the heat-bonded peripheral edge section along at least one edge of the packaging film on the front surface side.
When opening the packaging pouch of this configuration to take out the electrode sensor 112 for measuring blood glucose level contained therein, firstly, the packing film of the non-heat-bonded section 107 is grasped with the fingers and pulled to either side, separating the protruding heat-bonded section 109 from the distal end to bring about separation as far as an opening line 113. The separated packing films 105, 106 are then respectively folded outward to expose an end section 114 of the electrode sensor 112 for measuring blood glucose level from the packaging pouch. In so doing, this exposed end section 114 can be grasped with the fingers to remove the electrode sensor 112 for measuring blood glucose level.
Thereafter, blood is impregnated through a specimen delivery path (cavity) constituted by the exposed section of the taken out electrode sensor 112 for measuring blood glucose level, and the blood glucose level is measured.